SERMON  READING 


W.SPOONER  SMITH 


RABY  OP  RELIGIOUS  THOUGHT 


%^^i-i  ^s^^y 


BV  A211  .S54  1916 

Smith,  William  Spooner,  1821 

-1916. 
Sermon  reading 


JOHN    COTTON 


SERMON   READING 

FROM  THE  NOTE  BOOK  OF  THE 
OCTOGENARIAN  TRAVELLER  ^IOV  1  7  19"' 

W.    SPOONER    SMITH 

Author  of  "Travel  Notes  of  an  Octogenarian" 


^ 


LiUr:  o-f  TnallVjouS'tKotAcdn-t". 


BOSTON:    THE    GORHAM    PRESS 

TORONTO:  THE  COPP   CLARK   CO.,  LIMITED 


Copyright,  1916,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


The  Origin  of  Sermon  Reading  ...  7 
Sermon  Reading  in  America  ....  37 
Prominent  New  England  Preachers    .     47 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACINO  PAGE 

John  Cotton Frontispiece 

Henry  VIII 8 

Edward  VI i6 

Queen  Mary  I 24 

Queen  Elizabeth    .     .  • 32 

Cotton  Mather 38 

Jonathan  Edwards 42 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  SERMON   READING 


SERMON   READING 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  SERMON  READING 

VAN  OOSTERZEE,  in  his  Practice  of  The- 
ology, complains  that  the  History  of  the  Art 
of  Preaching  is  only  for  too  many  "terra  Incog- 
nita," but  allows  validity  to  the  excuse  that  there 
is  yet  wanting  a  good  history  of  the  Art. 

Furthermore,  the  exceeding  meagerness,  in  all 
Church  annals,  of  reference  to  that  institution, 
dignified  and  emphasized  by  the  final  command  of 
Christ  to  his  Disciples,  is  like  a  surprise,  disap- 
pointment and  mystery  to  the  student  of  Chris- 
tian history.  Therefore,  the  task  of  presenting 
any  historic  phase  of  this  subject  is  not  an  easy 
one.  Hence,  I  bespeak  the  forbearing  consid- 
eration of  my  readers  in  this  attempt  in  a  brief 
and  imperfect  way  to  tell  whence  and  how  the 
practice  of  sermons  in  the  pulpit  has  come  to  be 
so  familiar  with  us. 

7 


8  SERMON  READING 

It  goes  without  saying  that  preaching  and  this 
particular  kind  of  preaching  are  not  convertible 
terms,  but  the  very  wide  distinctiveness  between 
the  two  may  be  surprising  to  many  as  it  shall  be 
revealed  by  the  lines  of  historical  definition.  For 
vast  spaces  of  time  may  be  cleared  by  brief  nega- 
tive statements.  Since  in  all  the  ages  of  the 
ancient  dispensation  recorded  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, when  preaching  itself  was  but  a  subordi- 
nate and  occasional  instrumentality,  from  Enoch 
and  Noah  to  the  last  of  the  prophets  that 
preached  righteousness  in  the  earth,  that  is  the 
save  in  a  single  possible  doubtful  instance,  so  as 
save  in  a  single  possible  doubtful  instance.  So  as 
respects  later  times  it  is  not  difficult  to  accept  Dr. 
Pressense's  sweeping  and  emphatic  statement,  that 
none  of  the  expressions  by  which  preaching  is 
spoken  of  in  the  New  Testament  can  apply  to 
written  documents.  And  considering  the  high 
authority  of  the  example  thus  set,  it  is  easy  to 
conclude  with  Prof.  Hoppin,  of  Yale,  New  Haven, 
that  there  is  no  proof  that  the  early  patristic 
fathers  were  in  the  common  habit  of  using  writ- 
ten notes.     By  the  revival  of  ceremonial  worship 


IIEXRV    VIII. 


SERMON  READING  9 

and  the  gradual  restrictions  of  preaching,  the 
altar  came,  at  length,  to  displace  the  pulpit  alto- 
gether In  the  regular  ministrations  of  the  Church. 
The  ecclesiastical  historian,  Sozomen,  makes  the 
surprising  and  puzzling  statement  that  In  his  time, 
toward  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  the  Church 
in  Rome  had  no  sermons,  neither  by  the  bishop  or 
any  other.  There  Is  other  testimony  of  the  same 
sort,  and  It  is  certain  that  in  large  portions  of 
the  Latin  and  Greek  churches  preaching  was  rare 
and  exceptional  from  the  sixth  to  the  sixteenth 
century.  And  what  we  know  of  the  occasional 
preaching  of  medieval  times,  the  sermons  of  men 
like  Peter  the  Hermit,  Andrew  of  Padua,  and  the 
monkish  preachers  that  eventually  arose,  is  of 
that  fiery  and  passionate  nature  least  suggestive 
of  the  written  page. 

But  the  Reformation  reinstated  preaching  in 
Its  primitive  dignity  and  power,  where  it  has  ever 
continued  the  supreme  agency  in  the  progress  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  earth. 

But  we  may  still  continue  onward  in  the  nega- 
tive process  of  our  Inquiry,  for  not  only  is  the 
exclusion  of  the  fifteen  Christian  centuries,  with 


lo  SERMON  READING 

all  preceding  time,  justified,  but  it  is  safe  to  claim 
that  the  Greek  and  Romish  churches,  as  well  as 
the  various  Protestant  bodies  of  Continental  Eu- 
rope, have  been  with  very  slight  exception,  even 
down  to  the  present  time,  true  to  pulpit  tradi- 
tions of  the  primitive  church.  Thus  not  till 
we  come  down  to  our  own  times  in  the  records  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  do  we  find  the  object  of  our 
search.  Which  is,  we  repeat,  not  occasional,  but 
habitual  sermon-reading, — the  deliberate  and  ex- 
clusive adoption  of  this  as  the  method  of  deliv- 
ery. This  kind  of  preaching  as  a  usage,  an  insti- 
tution clear-cut,  peculiar  and  distinctive,  is  not 
found  previous  to  the  English  Reformation,  but 
here  do  we  come  upon  it  with  its  local  habitation 
and  name.  That  German  scholarship  in  the  name 
of  Van  Oosterzee  allows  sermon-reading  to  have 
originated  upon  English  soil,  should  convince  any 
inclined  to  be  skeptical  upon  this  point  that  this 
statement  is  no  straining  of  records,  or  point  of 
special  pleading,  but  plain  historic  prose. 

This  English  Reformation,  the  burning  ques- 
tion not  only  in  religious  and  ecclesiastical  affairs, 
but  in  state  and  politics  as  well,  for  an  hundred 


SERMON  READING  ii 

and  fifty  years  of  the  most  intense,  changeful,  tur- 
bulent and  momentous  period  of  English  history, 
left  the  distinct  impression  of  its  mighty  forces 
upon  the  Anglo-Saxon  pulpit,  which  remains  fixed, 
singular,  and  uneffaced  to  the  present  day.  A 
brief  study  of  this  historic  period,  therefore,  is 
necessary  to  an  intelligent  appreciation  of  the 
genius  of  manuscript  preaching. 

It  was  Henry  VIII,  a  man  as  hostile  to  Luther 
and  his  Doctrines  as  the  Pope  himself,  and  a 
bloody  upholder  of  every  Popish  rite  to  the  end 
of  his  days,  who  "broke  the  bond  of  Rome"  by  a 
successful  vindication  of  his  own  personal  head- 
ship of  the  Church  of  England.  It  is  true  that 
a  corrupt  and  debased  clergy  was  open  to  coercion 
and  that  neither  himself  nor  the  English  nation, 
at  large,  ever  held  allegiance  to  the  See  of  Rome 
as  scarcely  more  than  a  constitutional  fiction.  Yet 
with  all  his  advantages  it  is  proof  of  the  kingly 
might  of  the  man  that  he  made  this  first  blow 
of  reform  so  effectual.  But  his  position  was  peril- 
ous and  delicate,  and  to  silence  a  yet  hostile  and 
rebellious  clergy  he  promulgated  that  order  which 
first  framed  the  written  sermon  into  law,  for  he 


12  SERMON  READING 

forbade  the  preaching  of  any  sermon  which  had 
been  written  within  these  two  or  three  hundred 
years,  as  the  words  ran.  Thus  he  would  put  it 
out  of  the  power  of  the  recalcitrant  priest  to 
inflame  the  minds  of  the  people  by  his  pulpit 
harangues. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  that  pre- 
cocious and  promising  boy,  Edward  VI,  under 
the  protectorate  of  Somerset,  succeeded  to  the 
throne  and  honestly  undertook  the  real  reforma- 
tion of  the  nation.  Naturally,  preaching  received 
early  attention.  A  royal  visitation  in  six  circuits 
was  ordered,  with  a  preacher  to  each  circuit, 
which  preachers  were  to  instruct  the  people  in 
the  Doctrines  of  the  Reformation  and  bring  them 
off  from  their  superstitions.  A  book  of  homihes 
was  also  prepared  and  left  with  each  parish  priest 
to  supply  the  defect  in  preaching.  But  the  parish 
priests  were  still  so  disorderly  that  even  Edward 
himself  was  obliged  to  prohibit  preaching  alto- 
gether, until  some  uniform  order  could  be  made 
out  which  should  put  an  end  to  all  controversies 
In  religion.  Hence  the  origin  and  the  sublime 
purpose  of  the  Prayer  Book,  viz.,  a  device  In- 


SERMON  READING  .13 

tended  and  expected  to  put  an  end  to  all  con- 
troversies in  religion.  But  the  untimely  death  of 
this  youthful  monarch  gave  place  to  the  five 
bloody,  disastrous  years  of  Mary's  reign,  in  which 
the  Pope  seemed  to  have  come  to  his  ow^n  again 
in  English  affairs.  But  Protestantism  proved  it- 
self rooted  in  English  soil,  and  sturdy  enough 
to  withstand  Mary's  hostihty  and  even  the  half- 
hearted and  extremely  unsatisfactory  nature  of 
Elizabeth's  favor.  True  to  her  type  of  reform, 
she  never  yielded  to  the  temporal  assumption  of 
the  papacy,  but  she  made  no  show  of  any  per- 
sonal religion  of  any  kind.  But  worse  than  that, 
as  regards  the  interest  of  reform,  she  was  an 
avowed  and  unrelenting  enemy  of  all  preachers 
and  preaching.  She  hated  the  Puritans,  among 
whom  almost  alone  competent  preachers  could 
then  be  found.  Most  effectually  to  bar  all  such 
from  the  pulpit,  she  recast  the  service-book  in 
use,  and  made  copes  and  investments,  therein  for- 
bidden, essentials;  and  so  offensive  was  this  test 
that  it  was  found  impossible  to  fill  even  the  oc- 
curring vacancies  in  the  establishment  with  men 
of  tolerable  capacity.     Neal,  the  Puritan  histo- 


14  SERMON  READING 

rian,  accounted  it  next  to  a  miracle,  as  the  case 
stood,  that  the  Reformation  had  not  fallen  back 
into  the  hands  of  the  papists,  and  is  confident  that 
such  would  have  been  the  sad  consequence  had 
not  some  of  the  Puritans  complied  for  the  present, 
in  hopes  of  the  removal  of  the  grievances  in  more 
settled  times.  There  was  but  little  preaching  all 
over  the  land.  The  Bishop  of  Bangor  had  but 
two  preachers  in  his  entire  diocese.  It  was  much 
if  the  parson  could  read  the  service  and  some- 
times a  homily,  Elizabeth  meanwhile  complain- 
ing that  there  was  too  much  preaching,  two  for 
a  county  was  an  ample  supply! 

But  the  Bishops  on  the  other  hand,  moved  by 
the  pleadings  of  the  people  for  the  ministry  of 
the  word,  strained  their  instructions  that  they 
might  let  in  the  most  conscientious  and  zealous 
of  the  reformers,  but  at  the  same  time  were 
obliged,  also,  to  admit  the  meanest  and  most 
illiterate  who  came  up  to  the  laws.  Another  book 
of  homilies  was  published  for  their  further  as- 
sistance. Yet  the  state  of  the  churches  continued 
most  deplorable.  Many  of  them  were  closed, 
and   in  those   that  were  not  no   sermon  was   tp 


SERMON  READING  15 

be  heard  in  some  counties  for  the  compass  of 
twenty  miles.  In  some  parishes  it  was  hard  to 
find  persons  to  baptize  or  to  bury  the  dead.  In 
about  the  thirteenth  year  of  Ehzabeth,  the  Bish- 
ops by  reason  of  the  sore  destitution  of  preachers 
resorted  to  a  special  system  of  training  for  the 
pulpit,  called  prophesying,  by  which  the  number 
of  preachers  was  rapidly  multiplied.  But  the 
Queen  sternly  suppressed  the  good  work  by  a  spe- 
cial order.  After  twenty  years  of  such  a  policy 
as  this,  we  are  not  surprised  to  still  hear  of  the 
languishing  conditions  of  the  pulpit.  In  the  large 
and  populous  town  of  Northampton  there  was  not 
a  single  preacher,  and  had  not  been  for  a  consid- 
erable time,  though  the  people  had  applied  to 
the  bishop  In  the  most  humble  supplications.  Of 
the  140  clergymen  in  the  county  of  Cornwall,  not 
one  was  capable  of  preaching  a  sermon.  One-half 
of  the  churches  in  London  Itself  were  without  a 
preaching  ministry.  It  was  stated  that  the  great- 
est part  of  the  ministries  of  160  parishes  in  one 
county  were  guilty  of  the  grossest  sins,  fornica- 
tions, adulteries;  drunkards,  gamesters,  and  felons 
even  bearing  the  brand  of  the  offense  In  their 


i6  SERMON  READING 

hands.  And  the  cause  of  all  this  curse  and  scan- 
dal was  simply  the  narrow  terms  of  conformity. 
For  a  rising  generation  of  valuable  preachers  was 
ready  for  service,  and  while  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities  were  turning  them  away  from  the  pul- 
pit, the  gentry  were  receiving  them  into  their 
houses  as  chaplains  and  tutors  for  their  children. 

By  a  special  survey  made  in  1585-86,  fifty  years 
along  In  the  Reformation,  it  was  found  that  there 
were  but  two  thousand  preachers  for  all  the  ten 
thousand  parish  churches.  At  a  time  when  not  one 
beneficed  clergyman  in  six  was  capable  of  com- 
posing a  sermon,  one-fourth  of  all  the  preachers 
of  England  were  under  suspension  in  the  various 
courts.  It  is  proof  of  the  autocratic  and  queenly 
force  of  Elizabeth's  will  that  she  was  able  to  sus- 
tain this  attitude  of  inveterate  hostility  to  preach- 
ing through  forty-five  years  of  that  period  in 
which  the  English  people  as  never  before  or  since 
hungered  and  pleaded  for  the  ministration  of  the 
pulpit.  A  good  Bible  reader  would  then  draw 
and  hold  an  audience  more  strongly  than  the  most 
accomplished  elocutionary  attractions  of  our  day. 
We  may  smile  and  wonder  at  the  interminable 


EDWARD   VI. 


SERMON  READING  17 

discourses  of  those  old  preachers,  but  they 
preached  thus  on  and  on  because  the  people  hung 
upon  their  words  with  the  most  unflagging 
interest. 

But  Elizabeth's  long  reign  finally  came  to  a 
close,  and  Protestant  England  in  view  of  the  re- 
ligious antecedents  of  James  hopefully  welcomed 
him  to  the  throne.  But  that  most  despicable  of 
English  kings  disappointed  all  expectations  and 
drew  closer  than  before  the  limits  of  conformity. 
But  there  is  not  need  to  dwell  upon  the  pitiless 
rigors  of  this  or  the  succeeding  reign  which  made 
the  land  so  intolerable  to  devout  Englishmen  that 
20,000  of  them  went  into  voluntary  exile  over 
the  seas.  With  Cromwell  indeed  came  a  brief 
respite  from  ecclesiastical  violence.  But  on  the 
Restoration  the  storm  of  persecution  rose  again, 
and  culminated  in  the  cruel  and  infamous  succes- 
sion of  the  last  conformity,  the  conventicle  and 
five-mile  act.  But  the  long  agony  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  reformation  was  drawing  to  its  close.  The 
futile  effort  of  James  the  Second  to  effect  a  Catho- 
lic reaction,  precipitated  that  crisis  from  which 
issued   that   edict   of  universal   toleration   which 


1 8  SERMON  READING 

has  made    1688    so   memorable   to   the   English- 
speaking  race. 

Half  Catholic  and  half  Protestant  under  Henry 
VIII  and  Cranmer,  Lutheranized  under  Edward 
VI,  and  involved  in  a  bloody  struggle  by  Mary — - 
England  was  not  able  to  adopt  the  one-sided  sys- 
tem of  Luther  and  Calvin;  and  it  soon  discovered 
when  it  began  to  take  a  more  definite  form  under 
Elizabeth  that  the  spirit  of  the  old  religion  was 
still  powerful,  and  that  much  of  the  best  religious 
thought  of  England  retained  a  strong  Catholic 
impulse.  The  reign  of  Mary  had  indeed  embit- 
tered the  popular  feeling  against  the  Roman 
Catholics,  and  they  were  almost  crushed  as  a 
party  by  the  ruthless  cruelty  of  Elizabeth,  but 
the  Calvinistic  party  never  took  their  place;  and 
the  great  Ecclesiastical  Polity  of  Hooker,  the  ear- 
liest and  most  lasting  work  of  English  Theology, 
confirmed  the  principal  teachers  of  the  English 
Church  in  that  warm  attachment  to  the  English 
Church  of  the  earliest  ages  of  Christianity,  which 
was  but  little  known  to  the  other  Churches — ^^the 
Reformation.  But  the  independent  spirit  of  Cal- 
vinism,  though   rejected  by  the  greatest   of  the 


SERMON  READING  19 

English  Clergy,  early  obtained  an  Influence  which 
was  perhaps  rather  political  than  religious,  over 
many  of  the  ablest  men  of  the  English  Gentry 
and  middle  classes,  and  It  was  owing  to  the 
alliance  of  the  church  party,  and  especially  of 
Archbishop  Laud  with  the  despotism  of  James 
and  Charles,  that  Ehot,  Hampden,  Pym,  Crom- 
well, In  a  word,  some  of  the  greatest  politicians 
whom  England  has  ever  produced,  were  mostly 
non-conformists.  Thus  the  civil  war  was  a  strug- 
gle between  religious  as  well  as  political  princi- 
ples; but  though  Calvinism  was  triumphant,  Its 
victory  was  Its  destruction.  The  ten  years  of 
the  reign  of  the  Puritan  are  perhaps  the  convinc- 
ing evidence  that  Calvinism,  from  Its  narrow- 
ness, bitterness  and  want  of  reason,  can  never 
either  attract  the  mass  or  satisfy  the  most 
thoughtful  of  our  countrymen.  When  It  fell  the 
old  church  of  England  at  once  resumed  Its  place; 
but  It  was  no  longer  the  same  as  It  was  in  the 
days  of  Andrews  and  Laud,  for  It  had  all  the 
fresh  element  of  religious  thought  and  activity,  of 
which  I  have  just  spoken,  to  remold  or  struggle 
with.     It  Is  facts  such  as  these  which  make  the 


20  SERMON  READING 

fifty  years,  from  the  Restoration  in  1660  to  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  so  marked  a 
period  in  the  history  of  the  Church  of  England, 
because  it  saw  that  church  assume  its  final  form, 
and  enter  upon  what  may  be  called  its  modern 
course.  The  High  Church  party  (though  the 
name  was  not  yet  known),  the  Moderate  party, 
the  Latitudinarian  party,  and  the  Non-Conformist 
party  were  now  branching  in  different  directions 
from  the  two  old  parties  of  the  Church  of  the 
Puritans;  and  it  is  certainly  no  small  proof  of  the 
large  and  catholic  character  of  the  Church  that 
Bull  and  South  and  Parsons  and  Jeremy  Taylor, 
Lock  and  Boyle  and  Isaac  Newton,  were  not  only 
able  to  live  as  its  attached  members,  but  may  be 
numbered  among  its  greatest  writers.  This  is  a 
fact  that  must  not  be  forgotten  when  we  lament 
the  failure  of  the  larger  attempts  of  comprehen- 
sion, which  were  made  in  the  reigns  of  Charles  II 
and  William.  Meanwhile  it  is  useless  to  add 
that  this  period  was  also  one  of  vehement  strug- 
gle in  which  churchmen,  Non-Conformists,  and 
Roman  Catholics  had  their  alternate  attempts  and 
which  were  likely  therefore  to  breed  a  race  of 


SERMON  READING  21 

vigorous  combatants. 

In  view  of  the  course  which  we  have  then 
roughly  blazed,  four  stages  in  the  introduction  of 
sermon  reading  might  be  characterized  with  suffi- 
cient propriety,  perhaps  as  the  despotic,  the 
providential,  the  necessitated  and  the  voluntary 
phases  of  the  innovation, 

I.  Arbitrary,  introduced  by  the  order  of 
Henry  VIII  to  his  but  nominally  reformed  clergy 
that  there  should  be  nothing  but  the  reading  of 
old  sermons  from  the  pulpit.  This  great  and 
startling  change  in  the  order  of  church  ministra- 
tion was  received  by  the  people  with  mingled  dis- 
gust, indignation  and  alarm.  But  this  seemed 
safer  to  the  king  than  the  unrestrained  incen- 
diarism of  the  parish  priest. 

II.  The  providential  phase.  This  comes  to  view 
in  Edward's  time  when  according  to  Bishop  Bur- 
net's statement  those  also  who  were  licensed  to 
preach  by  the  king,  being  often  accused  for  their 
sermons,  and  complaints  being  made  by  hot  men 
of  both  sides,  came  to  write  and  read  their  ser- 
mons as  a  more  safe  and  expedient  resort  in  tur- 
bulent and  perilous  times. 


22  SERMON  READING 

III.  The  necessitated  phase.  This  in  the  clas- 
sification differs  from  the  Arbitrary  in  that  it  was 
not  brought  about  by  despotic  orders,  but  was  the 
necessary  result  of  the  situation  and  the  policy  of 
the  government.  For  the  English  reformation 
was  a  combined  movement  of  political  and  re- 
ligions forces,  which  were  so  disproportionately 
combined  as  not  only  to  fail  of  harmonious  ac- 
tion, but,  on  the  other  hand,  to  work  harm  and 
disaster.  This  is  apparent  at  a  glance.  For 
political  reformation  was  by  a  "  word**  as  crea- 
tion came.  England  one  day  Catholic;  the  next 
Protestant.  So  Henry  made  it,  Mary  as  imme- 
diately revised  the  order.  Elizabeth  again  re- 
formed the  nation  by  a  breath.  Not  only  was 
there  no  Protestant  clergy  to  supply  the  parishes, 
but  those  parishes  were  still  in  the  hands  of  the 
nominally  reformed  but  really  thrice  Popish 
priests.  Reading  was  a  paradoxical  necessity,  for 
the  supply  of  preachers  was  of  the  wrong  sort. 
And  the  reader  became  the  only  possible  resort 
until  competent  and  trustworthy  preachers  could 
be  provided.  This  was  in  the  beginning  of  the 
reformation.      Moreover,   we  have  noticed  how 


SERMON  READING  23 

the  government,  for  more  than  four  generations 
of  Englishmen,  in  view  of  the  nation's  perishing 
need  of  adequate  and  competent  church  minis- 
trations, kept  at  the  work  as  how  best  not  to  sup- 
ply that  need.  So,  per  force  of  hard  necessities, 
protracted  and  aggravated,  people  and  preachers 
were  broken  into  the  innovation. 

IV.  We  reach  now  the  Voluntary  phase.  For 
the  time  came  at  length,  in  the  course  of  suc- 
cessive generations,  when  manuscript  preaching 
became  the  preferred  practice,  that  the  univer- 
sities even  gave  the  sanction  of  their  example 
to  the  new  way.  We  have  a  curious  piece  of 
evidence  in  a  state  paper  issued  in  the  fifteenth 
year  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second.  The 
paper  or  order  was  by  the  hand  of  the  Duke  of 
Monmouth  to  the  University  of  Cambridge,  of 
which  he  was  Chancellor,  and  read  as  follows: 

"His  Majesty  has  commanded  me  to  signify  to 
you  his  pleasure  that  this  practice  of  sermon  read- 
ing which  took  beginning  with  the  disorders  of 
the  late  times  be  laid  aside,  and  that  preachers 
deliver  their  sermons  both  in  Latin  and  English 
by  memory,  being  a  way  of  preaching  which  His 


24  SERMON  READING 

Majesty  judges  most  agreeable  to  the  use  of  for- 
eign churches  and  the  custom  of  churches  here- 
tofore, and  the  nature  and  entertainment  of  that 
holy  exercise." 

But  we  are  told  that  this  injunction  was  little 
heeded.  Finally,  Tillotson,  after  most  care- 
ful failure  in  attempts  at  extempore  preaching, 
brought  the  reading  pulpit  to  the  highest  degree 
of  perfection  and  popularity.  Though  the  read- 
ing of  his  sermons  by  no  means  justifies  the  ex- 
travagant estimates  of  his  contemporaries,  yet  we 
are  not  inclined  to  take  exception  to  the  quaint 
and  curiously  discriminating  tribute  which  Bishop 
Burnet  renders  to  the  sermonistic  literature  of 
the  great  English  divines,  which  runs  as  follows : 

"If  there  was  not  that  heat  and  fervor  which 
the  friars  had  shown  in  their  declamations,  so  that 
the  passions  of  the  hearers  were  not  so  much 
wrought  up  by  it,  yet  it  has  produced  the  great- 
est treasure  of  weighty,  grave,  solid  sermons  that 
ever  the  church  of  God  had,  which  does  in  a 
great  measure  compensate  that  seeming  flatness 
to  vulgar  ears  that  is  in  the  delivery  of  them." 
In  the  annals  of  the  sermons  made  to  be  read, 


OTEEX     MARY     1  ST. 


SERMON  READING  25 

the  closing  years  of  the  seventeenth  and  the  be- 
ginning of  the  eighteenth  centuries  is  a  period 
illustrious  with  great  names.  Yet  these  are  but 
the  brightest  spots  in  an  otherwise  dark  and  dis- 
couraging picture.  The  reformed  pulpit  had 
come  in  at  length  with  a  certain  magnificence  of 
prestige.  But  when  we  inquire  what  had  come 
with  it  and  what  it  had  accomplished,  the  answer 
is  far  from  satisfactory  and  encouraging.  The 
Evangelical  and  the  Canonical  divide  on  the  dis- 
tinct line  of  pulpit  delivery.  Lecky  says  the  writ- 
ten discourse  comported  best  with  the  cold  and 
colorless  theology  which  prevailed.  Voltaire  wit- 
nesses that  an  English  sermon  of  that  period  was 
a  solid  but  sometimes  dry  dissertation  which  a 
man  read  to  the  people  without  gesture  and  with- 
out any  particular  exaltation  of  voice,  while  on  the 
other  hand  discourses  aiming  at  the  pathetic  and 
accompanied  by  vivid  gesture  excited  laughter 
in  the  English  congregation.  But  it  is  church- 
men thernselves  who  bring  grave  charges  like 
the  following  upon  this  final  outcome  of  the  Eng- 
lish reformation.  "The  preachers  as  a  body  were 
not  Prophets,  they  were  not  Seers,  they  were  not 


26  SERMON  READING 

even  instructed  Scribes,  they  were  but  cold  essay- 
ists and  dull  literarians.  Their  gospel  was  a  gos- 
pel of  bare  respectability,  there  was  no  personal 
appeal  to  the  wavering,  no  fiery  denunciation  of 
the  wrongdoer,  and  a  painful  avoidance  of  en- 
thusiasm, a  refusal  to  lift  hand  or  voice  to  set 
off  the  finest  composition.  A  clergy  that,  instead 
of  a  coal  of  fire  from  the  altar,  offered  to  the 
generation  an  icicle  from  the  study,  applying  fee- 
ble sprinkling  of  tepid  water  to  an  age  that  needed 
burning  deluges  of  baptismal  fire — making  the 
very  conception  of  a  sermon  become  to  the  last 
degree  artificial  and  inane.  A  clergyman,  says 
the  poet  Shenstone,  might  distinguish  himself  by 
composing  a  set  of  sermons  on  the  ordinary  vir- 
tues extolled  by  the  classic  writers,  introducing 
the  ornamental  flourishes  of  Horace,  etc. 

Bishops  referred  their  clergy  to  the  Satires  of 
Juvenal  rather  than  to  the  inspirations  of  the 
prophets  and  the  apostles.  A  late  writer  sadly 
says,  "Thus  we  became  an  unpreaching  church, 
eloquence,  powerful  at  the  Senate  and  the  Bar, 
was  banished  from  the  pulpit.  Then  followed 
the  drowsy  audience  and  the  deserted  pews  and 


SERMON  READING  27 

at  length  the  profound  spiritual  lethargy  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  There  were  great  divines  and 
there  were  written  sermons  of  high  and  deserved 
repute,  but  preaching  as  an  art,  as  the  noblest  art, 
had  departed  from  us  and  the  alienation  of  the 
hearts  of  the  common  people  took  place,  from 
which  we  have  never  yet  recovered.  But  fortu- 
nately this  was  not  all  of  England  nor  all  of 
the  religion  of  England.  The  Puritan,  the  Ana- 
baptist, the  Presbyterian  and  the  Quaker  yet  lived, 
although  long  unrecognized  by  Church  or  State 
but  with  the  persecuting  scourge.  And  while 
learn^ed  bishops  were  bewailing  the  impotence 
of  their  polished  periods  against  the  swelling 
floods  of  profligacy,  brutality,  and  ungodliness, 
or  confessing  in  the  words  of  Warburton  that 
they  had  lived  to  see  the  fatal  crisis  when  religion 
had  lost  its  hold  upon  the  minds  of  men,  or  with 
Butler,  that  the  avowed  scorn  of  religion  in  some, 
and  growing  disregard  of  it  in  the  generality,  was 
the  deplorable  distinction  of  the  age,  even  then 
when  moral  and  spiritual  forces  seemed  to  be 
losing  their  hold  altogether  upon  human  society 
and  the  human  heart,  the   fullness  of  the  times 


28  SERMON  READING 

was  drawing  near  in  the  gracious  providence  of 
God,  when  rude  but  sturdy  hands  of  a  new  order 
of  evangelists  should  grasp  the  sword  of  the 
Spirit,  then  so  neglected  by  a  beneficed  priesthood, 
and  go  in  its  foreordained  and  primitive  might, 
so  subduing  kingdoms  and  working  righteousness 
that  not  only  should  the  English  world  be  re- 
formed indeed,  but  dead  Anglicanism,  itself,  be 
made  alive  and  mighty  in  every  good  work  and 
word. 

Substantially  then  in  the  hands  of  a  sermon- 
reading  clergy,  Christianity  came  perilously  near 
to  becoming  a  lost  cause  on  English  soil,  a  rescue 
and  redemption  to  religion  and  people  was  under 
God  by  the  fiery  tongue  of  Wesleyan  evangelism. 

According  to  Matthew  Arnold  the  four  chief 
names  of  the  English  church  are  Hooker,  who  is 
great  by  having  signally  and  above  others  the 
sense  of  religion,  of  history,  and  of  historic  devel- 
opment; Butler,  who  is  greater  by  having  the 
sense  of  philosophy;  Barrow,  by  having  that  of 
morals;  Wilson,  that  of  practical  Christianity. 

Wilson's  sermons  were  not  great  in  the  way 
of  literary  greatness,  though  they  partake  of  and 


SERMON  READING  29 

illustrate  that  downward  movement,  which  from 
the  splendor  of  Barrow  and  Taylor  plunged  like 
a  flake  of  falling  fire,  through  the  chill  transpar- 
ency of  Clarke  and  Tillotson  into  the  orthodox 
dullness  of  Beveridge,  and  which,  when  all  but  ex- 
tinguished, sputtered  feebly  amid  white  ashes  in 
the  tawdry  verbosity  of  Harvey  and  the  artificial 
rhetoric  of  Blair. 

It  was  the  age  of  Hume,  yet  Wilson  does  not 
contribute  one  iota  of  argument  for  the  defense 
of  Christianity;  it  was  the  age  of  Pope,  yet  he 
scarcely  quotes  or  alludes  to  one  line  of  poetry; 
it  was  the  age  of  Addison  and  Johnson,  yet  he 
makes  no  reference  to  contemporary  literature; 
it  was  the  age  of  Berkeley  and  Butler,  yet  for  him 
metaphysics  are  non-existent;  it  was  the  age  of 
Hoadley,  yet  he  had  nothing  to  contribute  to  the 
Bangorian  controversy;  it  was  the  age  of  Laes 
and  Fenelon,  yet  he  has  not  a  word  to  say  of 
mysticism  and  quietism ;  it  was  the  age  of  the  early 
preaching  of  Woolsey  and  Whitefield,  yet  he 
never  touches  upon  that  breath  of  influence  which, 
alas,  too  late  it  may  be  to  avert  the  Nemesis  of 
herneglectand  will-blind,  was  beginning  to  breathe 


30  SERMON  READING 

over  the  dead  church  like  a  stream  of  fire. 

Sobriety  and  good  sense  were  the  qualities  most 
valued  in  the  pulpit  and  enthusiasm  and  extrava- 
gance were  the  most  dreaded.  The  habit  of  ex- 
tempore preaching  almost  died  out  after  Burnet 
and  Tillotson  set  the  example  of  written  dis- 
courses. Clarke,  who  was  at  that  time  much  dis- 
tinguished as  an  extempore  preacher,  abandoned 
the  practice  as  soon  as  he  obtained  the  important 
and  fashionable  pulpit  of  St.  James. 

The  age  in  which  they  preached  was  a  Godless 
age;  it  was  an  age  whose  poetry  was  without 
romance,  whose  philosophy  was  without  insight, 
and  whose  public  men  were  without  character. 
It  abounded  in  "immoral  thoughtlessness."  A 
"loose  and  ignorant  diem"  was  prattled  in  all 
fashionable  circles  and  a  general  scorn  of  religion 
was,  as  always,  attended  by  general  profligacy  of 
manners.  The  clergy  were  remiss  in  their  labors 
and  self-indulgent  in  their  lives.  There  were 
some,  even  among  leading  statesmen,  who  were 
drunken,  illiterate  and  coarse.  There  were  mem- 
bers of  the  royal  family  who  set  a  scandalous 
example.    The  odious  letters  of  Chesterfield  show 


SERMON  READING  31 

with  what  unblushing  cynicism  a  father  could 
teach  Immorality  to  a  son  as  a  necessary  element 
of  a  fashionable  career.  The  uneducated  and 
shamefully  neglected  masses  sank  into  terrible 
depths  of  crime  and  brutality.  The  pictures  of 
Hogarth,  the  novels  of  Smollett  and  Fielding 
show  that  English  morals  had  fallen  to  their  very 
depths  of  degradation. 

And  how  did  God's  ministers  attempt  to  stem 
this  torrent  of  iniquity?  What  was  the  teaching 
they  offered,  what  the  motions  they  opposed  to  all 
this  crime  and  denial  of  God?  Nothing,  for  the 
most  part,  but  the  coldest  and  nakedest  of  moral- 
ity. Their  Gospel  was  a  Gospel  of  bold  respect- 
ability. There  was  no  personal  appeal  to  the 
wavering,  no  fiery  denunciation  of  the  insolent 
wrong-doer.  Cringing  flattery,  unblushing  incon- 
sistency, open  worldliness,  greedy  hunting  of  pre- 
ferments. Bishops  and  archbishops  amassed  colos- 
sal fortunes  and  traveled  across  their  provinces 
and  gorged  with  pluralities  of  every  desirable 
benefice  their  sons  and  kinsmen;  a  clergy  addicted 
to  such  aims  as  these;  a  clergy  painfully  anxious 
to  relieve  themselves  of  the  crying  sin  of  enthu- 


32  SERMON  READING 

siasm;  a  clergy  which  reveled  in  such  pompous 
euphemisms  and  polished  nullities  as  those  of 
Blair,  could  never  deeply  stir  the  hearts  of  the 
age. 

With  beginning  so  unpromising,  and  efficacy  so 
questionable,  the  practice  of  sermon  reading  did 
not  very  freely  or  widely  spread. 

Wales  kept  strictly  true  to  her  honorable  tra- 
ditions. The  relation  of  Scotland  to  the  inno- 
vation is  well  illustrated  by  a  story  told  by  Nor- 
man Macleod.  Having  upon  a  time  preached 
in  a  district  of  Ayreshire,  where  the  reading  of 
sermons  was  regarded  as  the  greatest  fault  a 
minister  could  be  guilty  of;  on  the  dispersion  of 
the  congregation  an  old  woman,  overflowing  with 
enthusiasm,  addressed  her  neighbor,  exclaiming, 
"Did  ye  ever  hear  anythin'  so  gran',  wasn't  that 
a  sermon?"  But  all  her  expressions  of  admira- 
tion being  met  with  stolid  silence,  she  shouted, 
"Speak,  woman,  wasna  that  a  sermon?"  "Oh I 
aye,"  replied  her  friend  sulkily,  "but  he  read  it." 
"Read  it,"  said  the  other  with  indignant  empha- 
sis, "I  wouldna  have  cared  if  he  had  whustled  it." 
And  yet  it  is  true  Scotland's  greatest  preacher 


••  :^M 


WHm'-^^ 


S^*^-y^:. 


■m^  '^^' 


OUEEN    ELIZABETH 


SERMON  READING  33 

Is  claimed  as  a  sermon  reader.  But  it  is  only 
fair  to  say  that  he  was  even  less  a  mere  reader 
than  an  extemporaneous  preacher. 

Dr.  Chalmers  on  great  occasions  was  absolutely 
terrible,  his  heavy  frame  was  convulsed,  his  face 
flushed  and  grew  pythic;  the  veins  on  his  forehead 
and  neck  stood  out  like  cordage,  his  voice  cracked 
or  reached  to  a  shriek,  foam  flew  from  his  lips 
in  flakes,  he  hung  over  his  audience  menacing 
them  with  his  shaking  fists,  or  he  stood  erect 
maniacal  and  stamping.  If  that  be  reading,  it  is 
reading  with  a  pith  in  it,  as  a  lady  admirer  who 
hated  reading  once  styled  it.  In  later  years,  how- 
ever, the  practice  of  reading  has  gained  ground 
somewhat  in  Scotland. 

Upon  the  continent,  Netherlands  alone  had 
adopted  the  manuscript  to  any  considerable  ex- 
tent. But  the  Illustrations  of  our  theme,  both 
direct  and  comparative,  in  American  history  are 
too  interesting  and  important  to  pass  unnoticed. 


SERMON  READING  IN  AMERICA 


SERMON  READING  IN  AMERICA 

THE  Puritan  preachers  of  the  first  generation 
in  New  England  were  able,  learned  and  fore- 
speaking  men.  Our  John  Cotton  usually  bestowed 
great  labor  upon  his  public  discourses,  but  some- 
times even  on  his  way  to  church  pulpit  his  text 
would  open  to  him  in  a  new  and  striking  manner 
and  he  would  then  unfold  it  by  the  hour  to  such 
effect  that  his  most  critical  hearers  never  sus- 
pected he  was  listening  to  an  unstudied  effort. 
Samuel  Danforth,  of  Roxbury,  a  man  of  un- 
bounded learning  and  influence,  wrote  his  ser- 
mons twice  over  in  an  exceedingly  legible  and 
beautiful  hand,  but  afterwards  committed  them 
to  his  most  tenacious  of  memories.  Jonathan 
Mitchel,  a  man  of  transcendent  majesty  and  live- 
liness, wrote  very  largely,  but  read  never  a  word 
after  his  text.  In  short,  scholarly  habits  and 
elaborate  preparation  were  subordinate  to  the  fin- 
est and  most  effective  delivery.  But  a  change 
early  set  in;  Cotton  Mather  says  of  John  Ware- 

37 


38  SERMON  READING 

ham,  the  first  minister  of  Windsor,  Conn.,  and 
maternal  grandfather  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  that 
he  was  the  first  preacher  who  ever  preached  with 
notes  in  our  New  England.  But  it  is  not  strange 
that  the  style  of  preaching  which  Tillotson  and 
his  school  had  made  so  popular  with  cultivated 
Englishmen  of  the  period  should  appeal  strongly 
to  learned  and  critical  tastes  in  the  new  world. 
And  so  it  came  to  pass  before  the  close  of  the 
first  colonial  century  that  the  ministers  of  the 
New  England  churches  became  the  most  formal, 
impassive  and  inveterate  of  readers,  and  thus  they 
also  lost  their  hold  upon  the  hearts  of  the  common 
people,  and  the  way  was  prepared  for  the  in- 
coming of  denominations  of  other  names.  How- 
ever, a  goodly  number  in  every  generation  of  New 
England  has  held  on  upon  the  old  way.  Among 
such  were  many  of  the  ablest  and  most  popular 
preachers. 

More  than  fifty  of  the  names  commemorated  in 
Sprague's  Annals  of  the  Congregational  Pulpit 
are  of  men  who  kept  themselves  clear  from  any 
habitual  use  of  notes  in  their  preaching.  Besides, 
wherever,  in  this  country,  the  habit  of  sermon 


COTTON    MATHER 


SERMON  READING  39 

reading  had  become  prevalent  there  have  not  been 
wanting  marked  indications  of  dissatisfaction. 
The  younger  Ware,  of  Harvard  College,  and  Dr. 
Wayland,  of  Brown  University,  were  conspicu- 
ous, determined  and  persistent  in  their  efforts 
for  reform.  Here  and  there  have  been  witnessed 
striking  examples  of  personal  emancipation  from 
the  translating  of  notes.  Without  naming  recent 
brilliant  instances  familiar  to  us  all,  there  was  Dr. 
Archibald  Alexander,  who  discarded  the  use  of 
notes  in  his  later  years.  Albert  Barnes  likewise 
became  an  extemporaneous  preacher  after  he  was 
sixty  years  of  age.  Dr.  James  W.  Alexander,  of 
the  most  important  Presbyterian  pulpit  in  New 
York  City  in  his  day,  responded  as  follows  to  Dr. 
Wayland's  appeals  for  extempore  preaching, 
"That  the  Baptist  should  forsake  this  strength 
and  come  down  to  the  poor  level  of  ourselves 
is  amazing  to  me."  "Were  I  not  a  poor  fickle 
creature,  whose  work  seems  nearly  done  and  who 
cannot  simplify  what  he  teaches,  I  would  blow 
a  trumpet  of  alarm."  But  the  most  marvelous 
case  upon  record,  perhaps,  of  reform  pulpit  prac- 
tice is  that  of  Rev.  John  Barnard,  of  Marble- 


40  SERMON  READING 

head,  whose  ministry  extended  from  1701-1770. 
A  man  grand  in  countenance  and  majestic  in  mien, 
one  of  the  most  vigorous  and  effective  writers 
of  his  day  among  the  New  England  clergy,  when 
in  the  sixty-seventh  year  of  his  ministry  and  the 
eighty-seventh  of  his  hfe,  and  unable  to  read  his 
manuscripts  by  reason  of  defective  eyesight,  took 
to  extemporaneous  preaching  with  an  effect,  at 
times,  greater  even  than  that  which  had  marked 
his  best  written  sermons.  But  in  addition  to  these 
reactionary  movements  against  the  stiffness  and 
formality  of  the  Ikter  New  England  preaching, 
which  had  spread  to  some  extent  into  the  middle 
states,  there  is  the  singular  fact  that  to-day  this 
sermon-reading  habit  continues  in  practice  with- 
out the  avowed  encouragement  and  support  of 
a  single  homiletical  authority.  For  when  Prof. 
Phelps  declares  that  the  extemporaneous  Ideal  is 
the  true  one  of  perfect  public  speech,  he  but  gives 
voice  to  the  present  undisputed  theory  of  ser- 
mon delivery,  even  where  the  manuscript  has  been 
and  is  in  most  habitual  use.  But  notwithstanding 
all.  New  England  Congregationalism,  both  in  its 
liberal  and  conservative  wings,  stands  next  to  the 


SERMON  READING  41 

Anglican  church  in  proportional  denominational 
adoption  of  the  manuscript  sermon  and  practical 
adherence  thereto. 

But  there  was  another  preacher  of  a  far  dif- 
ferent sort  who  in  the  vast  regions  west  and 
south  stood  between  the  people  and  barbar- 
ism, which  according  to  Dr.  Bushnell  was  the 
real  danger.  The  story  of  pioneer  preaching  in 
America  is  a  tale  thrilling  with  devotion,  hero- 
ism and  triumphant  song.  It  is  the  record  of 
the  second  and  greater  revolution  which  took 
place  and  broke  the  bonds  of  vice,  brutality  and 
irreligion.  Whence  those  men  came  it  is  hard 
to  tell,  surely  in  the  very  least  proportion,  from 
the  college  and  schools,  for  they  had  on  them 
the  slightest  suggestion  of  the  fashioning  of  man's 
hand,  they  seemed  to  spring  from  the  very  earth 
at  the  summons  of  God,  a  host  of  the  most  aggres- 
sive, impressible  and  invincible  evangelists,  Wes- 
leyan.  Baptist,  Scotch  Irish  Presbyterians,  as  a 
body,  almost  wholly  uneducated,  untrained,  in- 
formal, unconventional,  earnest,  active,  and  sol- 
emn as  thought  of  God,  judgment  and  eternal 
salvation  can  make  men,  they  went  far  in  ad- 


42  SERMON  READING 

vance  of  the  meeting-house,  and  the  organized 
church,  and  by  the  wayside,  in  fields,  and  forests, 
in  private  houses,  schools,  houses  or  barns,  any- 
where men  and  women  could  be  found,  and  spake 
straight  and  full  as  men  ever  spake  to  men,  to 
such  effect  that  the  vast  spaces  of  the  semi- 
barbaric  wilderness  of  the  wide  land  were  soon 
saved  to  civilization  and  to  God.  Under  God, 
wonderful  was  the  power  of  these  unschooled 
men.  We  are  told  of  a  southern  evangelist  who 
could  move  an  audience  of  five  thousand  souls 
like  a  landslide,  before  he  had  mastered  his  spell- 
ing book.  It  was  among  the  accomplishments  of 
Bishop  Asbury's  servant,  black  Harry,  that  he  was 
competent  to  take  the  place  of  his  master  in  the 
pulpit  as  occasion  might  require,  in  a  manner  most 
acceptable  even  to  city  audiences,  though  unable 
to  read  a  word. 

In  this  wise,  by  the  most  informal  and  purely 
extemporaneous  preaching,  the  great  denomina- 
tions of  the  country,  Methodist,  Baptist  and 
Presbyterian,  were  built  up.  The  use  of  notes  in 
the  pulpit  was  universally  discountenanced  or 
utterly  undreamed  of  by  preacher  and  people. 


JONATHAN    EDWARDS 


SERMON  READING  43 

But  those  zealous  and  often  rough-spoken  preach- 
ers were  not  only  successful  in  the  less  cultivated 
communities,  but  were  equal  also  to  an  effectual 
invasion  of  the  land  of  the  school  and  the  col- 
lege, for  the  words  of  Bishop  Asbury  after  his 
first  discouraging  visit  to  New  England,  that  the 
Eastern  church  would  yet  find  this  saying  true 
of  the  Methodist,  viz.,  "I  will  provoke  you  to 
jealousy  by  a  people  that  are  no  people  and  by 
a  foolish  nation  will  I  anger  you,"  were  not  with- 
out substantial  fulfilment.  An  interesting  remi- 
niscence of  the  late  William  E.  Dodge:  When  a 
youth  I  resided  in  a  New  England  village,  where 
there  was  no  place  for  evening  meetings  but  a 
schoolroom  in  which  we  had  frequent  meetings 
and  enjoyed  several  revivals.  At  times  we  would 
have  perhaps  a  Methodist  preacher,  with  little 
theological  education,  but  good  natural  talent,  a 
fine,  full,  clear  voice,  who  would  deliver  a  plain 
gospel  sermon  fresh  from  the  heart  and  secure  the 
attention  of  all  present.  And  I  was  often 
ashamed  at  the  contrast  when  one  of  our  young 
men  from  New  Haven  or  Andover  would  come 
along  to  preach  and  I  would  have  to  take  a  band- 


44  SERMON  READING 

box  and  cover  It  with  a  towel  and  place  it  on 
a  little  table,  with  candles,  that  he  might  read 
off  his  sermons  generally  to  a  sleepy  and  inat- 
tentive audience.  Another  comparison  of  the  two 
kinds  of  delivery  we  have  from  an  experience 
of  the  late  Pres.  Nott,  of  Hamilton  College,  on 
hearing  that  celebrated  preacher.  Dr.  John  Blair 
Smith.  He  says,  "Coming  as  I  did  from  Con- 
necticut, where  the  discourses  of  the  clergy  were 
for  the  most  part  argumentative,  written  dis- 
courses and  read  calmly  and  steadily  from  the 
pulpit,  the  impassioned  and  extemporaneous  ef- 
forts of  Dr.  Smith  filled  me  alike  with  admiration 
and  amazement."  So  it  came  about  that  the  Puri- 
tan preacher  was  obliged  to  share  his  original 
inheritance  with  the  men  who  had  a  readier  way 
to  the  hearts  of  the  people. 


PROMINENT  NEW  ENGLAND 
PREACHERS 


PROMINENT  NEW  ENGLAND 
PREACHERS 

TOWARDS  the  close  of  the  life  of  John  M. 
Mason,  D.D.  ( 1792-1829),*  the  failure  of 
memory  consequent  upon  the  disease  which  para- 
lyzed mind  and  body,  obliged  him  to  write  his 
sermons  and  even  to  read  them.  It  was  not  with- 
out a  severe  mental  struggle  that  he  consented  to 
put  on  this  ignoble  yoke,  as  he  called  it,  for  he 
had  all  the  old  Scottish  prejudices  against  'read- 
ers of  the  Gospels'  and  had  said  as  hard  things 
about  them  as  any  one.  The  first  time  he 
preached  for  me  in  this  way  was  at  Spruce  Street, 
Philadelphia,  where  he  knew  the  people  had  a 
special  dislike  of  'the  paper.'  He  laid  his  notes 
on  the  Bible  and  then  said,  'My  friends,  I  must 
ask  your  indulgence  for  adopting  to-day  a  prac- 
tice which  through  life  I  have  condemned.  I 
must  read  my  sermon — the  hand  of  the  Lord  is 
upon  me.    I  must  bow  to  his  will.'    I  need  not  say 

*  All  dates  in  parentheses  refer  to  the  years  these  ministers  preached. 

47 


48  SERMON  READING 

that  the  bitterest  haters  of  'notes'  in  the  audi- 
ence were  melted  and  for  a  time  the  church  was 
truly  a  Bachim." — (Dr.  McCarter.) 

Dr.  Bithum  says  of  "His  printed  sermons,  ele- 
gant and  powerful  as  some  of  them  are,  convey 
but  a  poor  idea  of  his  actual  preaching." 

Of  Edward  Doar  Griffin  (1792-1837)  Dr. 
Nicholas  Murray  says,  "I  have  heard  him  preach 
great  sermons,  but  the  most  eloquent  and  glowing 
thoughts  that  have  ever  been  heard  by  me  from 
mortal's  lips  were  uttered  by  him  in  the  school- 
house  at  Williamstown." 

Gideon  Blackburn,  D.D.  (1792-1838),  was  a 
preacher  of  great  distinction  in  the  southwest. 
He  alludes  to  the  "Jerks,"  as  it  was  some- 
times called.  "I  have  not  only  heard  of  it  and 
seen  it,  but  have  felt  it,  and  I  am  persuaded  that 
it  is  only  to  be  effected  by  the  immediate  finger 
of  God."  He  seldom  wrote  his  sermons  and 
never  read  them  from  the  pulpit  even  when  he 
had  written  them.  In  his  preparation  and  studies 
for  the  pulpit,  his  plan  was  to  fold  a  sheet  of 
paper,  and  lay  it  on  his  writing  desk,  then  com- 
mence to  walk  backwards  and  forwards  across  the 


SERMON  READING  49 

room,  every  now  and  then  stopping  to  note  down 
a  head  or  leading  subdivision  of  his  thoughts, 
leaving  considerable  space  under  each  head.  Hav- 
ing thus  arranged  the  plan  of  his  discourse,  which 
he  called  "blazing  the  path,"  borrowing  a  figure 
from  backwoods  life,  he  then  proceeded  to  take 
up  each  head  separately,  until  he  had  thought 
his  whole  discourse  through  and  through,  stop- 
ping occasionally  as  before  to  dot  down  a  word 
or  a  thought,  sometimes  a  sentence  or  an  Illus- 
tration, under  each  division,  until  he  had  finished. 
Then,  taking  up  the  paper,  he  would  con  It  over 
again  and  again,  now  blotting  out,  now  adding 
something.  Thus  he  continued  till  every  part  of 
the  discourse  was  satlsfactoxlly  arranged  in  his 
mind.  The  notes  thus  prepared  he  usually  took 
with  him  into  the  pulpit,  but  he  rarely  had  occa- 
sion to  even  glance  at  them.  He  used  to  remark, 
"I  try  to  get  my  thoughts  fully  into  my  mind 
and  leave  the  language  generally  to  the  occasion." 
Amsl  Armstrong,  D.D.  (1795-1827),  was  a 
remarkable  man  In  many  aspects  and  would 
compare  not  unfavorably  with  the  most  promi- 
nent and  gifted  of  his  contemporaries.     He  early 


50  SERMON  READING 

accustomed  himself  to  preach  without  his  manu- 
script and  ultimately  attained  to  great  self- 
possession  and  power  in  that  mode  of  preaching. 
He,  however,  did  not  lay  aside  writing,  but  cul- 
tivated the  two  habits  of  writing  and  extemporiz- 
ing at  the  same  time. 

George  Addison  Baxter,  D.D.  (1797-1841), 
never  wrote  anything  and  never  had  the  brief- 
est outline  committed  to  paper — yet  his  prepara- 
tion was  thorough.  He  advised  his  students  (of 
Washington  College)  always  to  put  into  words 
their  extempore  sermons  at  least  twice  before 
preaching  them,  and  he  observed  that  when  they 
came  to  be  delivered  the  language  of  either  one 
or  the  other  of  these  rehearsals  would  most  prob- 
ably recur.  He  preached  his  sermons  as  he 
walked  about  from  place  to  place. 

Henry  Kollock,  D.D.  (1800-18 19),  of  Prince- 
ton College,  Savannah,  both  read  and  extempo- 
rized, but  the  brightest  efforts  of  eloquence  were 
purely  extemporaneous. 

Dr.  Dwight  regarded  James  Ingals,  D.D. 
( 1 801-1820),  as  the  most  signal  instance  of  pre- 
cision in  style  that  he  ever  met  with.     Though  he 


SERMON  READING  51 

had  his  manuscript  before  him,  he  was  always 
most  striking  and  eloquent  in  his  purely  extem- 
poraneous sermons. 

James  Laurie,  D.D.  (i 802-1 853),  of  Wash- 
ington, only  took  a  manuscript  into  the  pulpit  by 
reason  of  impaired  health  and  then  apologized  for 
appearing  before  them  "on  crutches." 

James  W.  Alexander  says  of  John  Holt  Rice, 
D.D.  ( 1 803-1 831),  of  Virginia,  that  in  common 
with  such  preachers  as  Fenelon,  Kirwan,  White- 
field,  Mason  and  Hall,  he  never  allowed  himself 
to  be  enslaved  by  what  he  had  written  down  in  his 
study. 

Rev.  Benjamin  Smith,  D.D.,  speaking  of  the 
expression  of  a  certain  likeness  of  Dr.  Rice,  says, 
"It  is  very  much  such  an  expression  as  we  may 
conceive  him  to  have  presented  when  by  way  of 
pleasantly  criticising  the  close  pulpit  reading  of 
a  certain  class  of  ministers,  on  meeting  one  of 
them  In  the  streets  of  a  Northern  city  the  morn- 
ing after  a  ten-minute  service  in  which  the  min- 
isters have  participated,  and  by  a  servile  adher- 
ence to  his  manuscript  have  subjected  him  to  the 
criticism,  he  took  from  his  pocket  a  paper  and 


52  SERMON  READING 

read  the  usual  questions  and  answers  of  common 
civility." 

James  P.  Nelson,  D.D.,  of  Philadelphia,  who 
preached  from  1806  to  1828,  wrote  on  a  blank 
leaf  of  his  copy  of  Henry  Ware's  tract  on  "Ex- 
temporaneous Preaching"  as  follows:  "I  have 
preached  twenty  years  and  have  never  written 
a  full  sermon  in  my  life  and  never  read  one  word 
of  a  sermon  from  the  pulpit  nor  opened  a  note 
nor  committed  a  sentence  and  have  rarely  wan- 
dered five  minutes  at  a  time  from  my  mental  ar- 
rangement previously  made." 

Rev.  Ephraim  Putnam  Bradford  (i  805-1 845), 
of  New  Boston,  N.  H.,  though  a  New  Englander 
and  a  preacher  for  forty  years  in  New  Hamp- 
shire, did  not  generally  write  out  his  sermons,  and 
during  the  latter  part  of  his  life  he  preached  often 
without  any  written  preparation. 

Sylvester  Earned  (18 17-1829),  of  New  Or- 
leans, was  a  youthful  wonder  born  in  Pittsfield, 
Massachusetts.  Although  he  died  at  twenty-four, 
he  was  one  of  the  most  popular  and  powerful 
of  American  preachers. 

James  Long  Sloss    (1817-1841),  of  Georgia, 


SERMON  READING  53 

never  read  in  the  pulpit.  Few  of  his  contempo- 
raries equal  him. 

John  Cabell  Breckinridge,  D.D.  (i 822-1 841), 
was  born  at  Dale,  on  the  North  Elkhorn,  Ky. 
His  death-bed  utterance:  "I  am  a  poor  sinner  who 
has  worked  hard,  and  had  constantly  before  my 
mind  one  great  object — the  conversion  of  the 
world." 

Dr.  Breckinridge's  habit  of  using  notes  was 
peculiar  and  worthy  of  notice.  Making  his  prepa- 
rations in  the  pulpit,  he  drew  forth  a  small  packet 
of  quarters  of  sheets  of  letter  size,  folded  length- 
wise so  as  to  make  four  pages.  The  inside  pages 
were  blank,  while  one  or  both,  as  he  might  have 
need,  of  the  outside  pages  were  covered  with  his 
bold  and  careless  manuscript.  Next  he  provided 
a  thin,  round  pocket  pin-cushion,  well  filled.  Then 
he  selected  one  of  these  slips  so  as  to  lap  the  leaf 
on  which  his  text  was,  so  that  when  the  first  page 
should  be  exhausted,  he  might  turn  the  leaf  of 
the  Bible  and  proceed  with  the  second.  Carefully 
selecting  another  place  in  the  Bible,  he  there 
pinned  another  paper  in  like  manner,  and  so  on 
with  the  third.     Each  of  these  slips  contained  a 


54  SERMON  READING 

distinct  head  of  remark,  with  brief  links  to  be 
filled  up  in  speaking,  and  concluded  with  a  ref- 
erence to  a  topic  that  required  the  use  of  a  text 
elsewhere;  and  following  the  reference  he  turned 
over  to  the  page  thus  indicated,  where  he  found 
his  further  hints  and  proceeded  as  before. 

It  was  Bishop  Griswold,  Episcopalian,  who 
said,  "I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  preaching  with 
my  arms." 

Episcopal  preachers  in  America  have  usually 
read  their  sermons.  But  among  the  exceptions 
to  this  rule  was  (i)  Bishop  John  P.  K.  Henshaw, 
who  composed  his  sermons  with  great  care  and 
incorporated  in  them  the  results  of  great  study 
and  thought.  When  necessary  his  preaching  was 
purely  extemporaneous.  He  was  by  universal 
consent  ranked  among  the  foremost  preachers  of 
Baltimore. 

(2)  Dr.  G.  T.  Bedell  frequently  preached  un- 
written sermons  with  great  effect,  and  his  read- 
ing was  marked  with  great  freedom. 

(3)  Dr.  Reuil  Keith,  whose  unwritten  ser- 
mons were  the  more  acceptable  and  effective, 
was    never    willing    to    preach    without    careful 


SERMON  READING  55 

preparation.  He  once  said  when  declining  to 
preach  on  the  following  sabbath,  and  he  was  still 
urged  to  preach  an  extempore  sermon,  "Ah!  if  a 
written  sermon  would  do,  I  might  draw  upon 
old  stores,  but  If  you  want  an  extemporaneous 
sermon  I  must  have  a  week  to  get  ready." 


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